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Re: Running over a fire hose

Do you want me to stop and put up cones and barricades when I am rushing to get ino your house to get out your family? Just asking.
The cones andarricades go up when the extra personnel show up!
Bin Der Dun Dat!

Re: Running over a fire hose

While I agree that nobody should ever drive over a fire hose unless they have been given permission, I had a situation where I could have lost my job for not doing so.

A few years back, our apartment building in Burnaby caught on fire, I was the one that noticed it on my way to the underground parking, and called 911. I stuck around in case the firemen had any questions, and also helped alert a lot of the tenants of the building as the fire alarm system didn't work!

Anyways, I believe 3 or 4 trucks showed up, none of them blocking the entrance/exit to our parking, but their hoses were. So none, not one, of the tenants of the building could go to work...100's of us were just standing around waiting to be able to leave. Only 1 apartment caught on fire, and there were numerous firemen standing around outside of which were asked many times if we were allowed to leave, and we were told that we were not allowed to drive over the hoses.

So, my question is, do firetrucks not have some sort of ramp that can be pulled out to shield the hoses and allow people to drive over them? Seems like a simple fix/answer to this problem...

Re: Running over a fire hose

Hey blue dodge I agree with you, maybe we do need to educate the public better. It couldn't hurt. chev-mekanik sometimes using the truck to block gets peoples attention and sometimes it doesn't.But my priority is my crew's life safety,the public's life safety,incident stabilization and then property conservation. So orangewhip I completely understand the frustration. I'm sure it looks that way standing around doing nothing, but walk in my shoes and you'll see a difference. I do agree ramps would be perfect and we used to carry them, but they were very big and heavy for the strength rating.They were not used a whole lot and took up a lot of space so they were removed. Maybe there is something new and lighter we could use.

Re: Running over a fire hose

Originally Posted by blazin saddles

I do agree ramps would be perfect and we used to carry them, but they were very big and heavy for the strength rating.They were not used a whole lot and took up a lot of space so they were removed. Maybe there is something new and lighter we could use.

I think there are numerous light weight material solutions available to protect the lives of everyone. Plastic is incredibly strong, light and easy to put on the truck.

I would suggest to either barricade the road which takes about five seconds, block the road with your truck, drop cones or buy some ramps for your hoses if this is so important to the safety of your team members or the general public.

Re: Running over a fire hose

Desteurm those ramps look great and I will suggest them to the mechanic division. I hear what your saying about the barricade and cones.That seems to be the perfect solution for 80-90% of the time. It's that other small percent of people that go around, through or over anything and I mean anything that's in their way.They do this with a total disregard for the lives of the people I work with, just because we have created an inconveiance for them.You have to also remember when we arrive at an incident it can be utter chaos. What seems like the most simplest thing to do like putting up barricades, becomes one of the lowest priorites compared to life safety/saving and incident stabilization. Maybe nothing else will come out of this, but you guys are at least thinking about it and hopefully you tell someone the next time they think it's ok to run over a hose tell them there's a firefighter that would like to go home to see his family. Thanks B

Re: Running over a fire hose

you cant save lives though when people that have no idea drive over your lines interupting your flow or worse cutting your lines. I have seen road construction crews have hoses runing across the road to discharge into the ditch on the other side with nothing protecting the hose and everyone drives over them because nobody says not to not to mention theres no choise, so how are people suppose to be smart enough to not drive over fire hoses on the road if they can run over other hoses that also look like firehoses?

edit: forgot to ask. you would think with todays technology you could have a hose with its own barrier system built in by pressuring it with water. like a hose within a hose and the outer hose is dead ended so when you pressure it up it protectes the inner hose from collapsing, still need people to slow traffic.

Re: Running over a fire hose

Everytime I block off a road or a lane people act as if I'm the devil himself... it doesnt matter if people are laying in the intersection with mangled limbs and bleeding. People these days have such a selfish idea of whats important in the world. Most complaints from public towards Police comes from when roads are blocked off and an officer is directing traffic.

Re: Running over a fire hose

I was blocking an alley to work with my cube van a few weeks ago in east van.. A neighbour in a pickup drove up yelling and screaming at me with the windows closed. I politely smiled and signaled to go around the block. He hit reverse spinning out in the gravel all the way back down the block, drove around, like 30 seconds max. Then came to me and told me to get out of the back of the truck so he could show me what respect is etc.. I had another guy there, hammer in my hand getting ready to work and he wanted to start shit right behind his house.. what an idiot. It was a 5 minute yelling match where i would just say, have a great day sir, good time to go home. *uck was he ever fuming Gotta love friendly neighbours lol.

All over maybe 30 seconds of his oh so valuable time...

I get alot of this as Im often on sites with only small alleys, plus running gutters out upto 50ft on average, it tends to piss off the impatient, but this was definitely the worse. From then on I just cone off the alley at both ends away from the site so I dont have to hear their BS and let people scratch their heads.

Re: Running over a fire hose

now we are getting off topic, but something like that happened to me one time with my work truck cube van. i was the first on site in the morning, parked the truck right up against the edge of the wall in the alley so i could move the fences to get in. I left enough room for cars to get by, couple cars and trucks go through. then it all turns to SHIT!
this chinese guy in a super duper expensive bmw pulls up, gets out, wearing an expensive suit, starts screaming at me to move my truck! I politely tell HIM that theres enough room to go around, and if you need me to guide you i will help you, or you can wait 5 minutes while I move these fences! HE FLIPS! starts yelling more, at this point I'm ignoring him, trying to finish moving my fences so I can park the truck on the site instead of the alley, and hes still going. then it happens, he starts yelling I HOPE YOU DIE!!! I HOPE YOU DIE!!!! I HATE CONSTWUCTION WORKER! I HOPE YOU DIE! oh shit my helper did NOT like that one bit, he was a first nations fellow. HE FLIPS OUT! now they are both screaming I HOPE YOU DIE at eachother in the middle of an alley in of all places, richmond by #3 road. all I can say is, god help me. this is it, the ultimate battle. the people who this land belongs to(first nations) vs the rich chinese business man, and its all going down in richmond at #3 road, and me, whitey the canadian born boy all caught up in this mess! ACK!

Re: Running over a fire hose

honestly i think its bad, when pumping firetrucks are reved up to match their water supply. disruptions causing any cavitation at all could easily destroy them, they are direct drive off the engine, using a pto to disconnect the drive wheels. they put out serious power and are often dialed in to pump as much water as they can, beleive it or not they can pull a vacuum off a hydrant. when we do our drills we can suck the fire hydrant down to 25 psi from 175 psi, 2000gpm, 4" + 2.5" feeders.

Re: Running over a fire hose

it sounds like this is the type of thing that needs a public service anouncement if it's this serious. maybe instead of commercials warning us of the dangers of speeding..... some new news instead of old news.

but running over fire hose tickets won't create enough revenue to make it worth while.

Re: Running over a fire hose

yeah that is very true. at the dealers there are special parameters you can download for cummins engines for fire trucks! special very special dont use them in anything but a fire truck! maximum torque, maximum rpm and no regard for engine safeties!

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